The Day You Died
by scrunchydarren
Summary: After John is killed, Sherlock has a hard time moving on. Mrs. Hudson tries to help him, but the pain of feeling responsible for John's death runs deep.


It had been months.

"I brought you some tea." Mrs. Hudson placed the small white cup on the coffee table. Sherlock lay pressed tightly into the crease of the couch, knees bunched up around his chest. She sighed and picked up the cup she left him in the morning, untouched and ice cold. It was the same thing every day. She could see the slight rise and fall of his ribcage, the only sign that the man was even alive.

She knows exactly what he's feeling: to lose the only person you love. The only person that really understands you. It's been like this ever since John was shot dead by Moriarty's sniper that night beside the public pool. John had done everything in his power to protect Sherlock, thrown his arms around Jim and told Sherlock to run, and he ultimately paid with his life.

_A soft gunshot from the rifle rang out over the water and John was knocked back to the ground. Sherlock rushed to his side, quickly ripping the bomb and coat off of John's body and sliding it clean across the tiled floor. He clutched John tightly in his arms, rocking on his knees and praying, whispering, telling John not do die. Not to leave him. John looked up into his eyes as the life slipped away. _

_"I'm glad no one saw that, you ripping my clothes off in a darkened swimming pool. People might talk." John smiled weakly at him and a watery chuckle escaped from Sherlock's lips. _

_"They will do little else." _

_With what strength he had left, John squeezed Sherlock's hand in his own, and died. Died slowly, so slowly, eyes falling closed and bleeding out as Sherlock tried desperately to press his fingers to the wound._

_"Let me be perfectly clear," Moriarty laughed and Sherlock had discovered that day what absolute evil sounded like. "This is __**completely**__ your fault, Sherlock." A stab to his heart. Jim turned and left then, disappearing. Sherlock didn't even hear the sound of shoes clicking across the tile. He couldn't hear anything over the rushing in his ears. Jim didn't even bother with killing Sherlock because he knew living without John would be a much greater torture._

"Sherlock, you need to get up today. I cannot watch you waste away on this couch forever." Mrs. Hudson sighed and gently rubbed her hand over his left shoulder. He was getting painfully thin.

"I don't need to do anything." A muffled reply came from the couch cushions. Sherlock picked aimlessly at the half a dozen nicotine patches that littered his forearms.

"Yes, you do." She patted his shoulder and perched herself on the arm of the couch near his head instead. She couldn't see his face past his incredibly curly and unkept hair. "John wouldn't want you do to this to yourself." Sherlock stilled for a moment before pushing himself up to his knees.

"With all due respect Mrs. Hudson, how could you _possibly_ know what John would or would not want. He's dead!" Extreme pain flickered in his eyes. "He'd dead because of _me_!" Sherlock tried to yell but his voice broke weakly instead.

"Sherlock..." Mrs. Hudson tried to lean forward to comfort him but Sherlock bounced from the couched and paced to the window. "I know what it's like to lose someone you love Sherlock-" Sherlock whipped back around.

"We were never in love! We were never together!" He barked. Why did everyone think they were a couple? Why did it suddenly bother him now when he never cared about it while John was alive?

"There is more than one kind of love, Sherlock." Mrs. Hudson moved to face Sherlock, who turned back to stare blankly out the window. "John was a man of war, you knew that from the moment you laid eyes on him. He was always going to protect you. He was always going to save you. But you saved him too."

"How, pray tell, did I save him? Look around Mrs. Hudson, he's not here! I watched him bleed to death in my arms for gods sake! I'm the reason he's dead!" Sherlock didn't even try to hold back the pain flooding to the surface. "I got him killed."

"You gave him life, Sherlock!" Mrs. Hudson raised her voice to try to compete with him. She never raised her voice before. "How can you be so thick? How can you not see what you did **for** him? The first day I met him, when you brought him here to the flat, he barely made it up the stairs. He was a broken man, Sherlock. Desperate with no where to go and somehow, he ended up paired with you."

"He'd still be alive if he were not my flatmate."

"You don't know that." Sherlock scoffed. "Now listen to me. John risked his life for you because he loved you. He cared about you more than himself. He's never hesitated to save you; he's always done it from the beginning. You can't change what happened." Sherlock was shaking his head.

For the first time in a long time, Sherlock let himself cry. Emotions were so pointless he never bothered with them. They were only a hindrance to his work. He let the tears slide around the rims of his eyes, drip into his lashes and slide down his cheeks, making no movement to swipe them away. What was the point?

"You don't understand." He whispered, still shaking his head, refusing to look away from the comfort of the window. "John was the only person in my life who understood me. Who put up with me and my insanities. He was interested in my work, enthralled by it actually." (_'That was... amazing.' 'You really think so?'_)

"And yes, we had _whatever_ we had, but it doesn't even matter. There will never be another person like him." Sherlock pressed his forehead to the cold glass.

"There will _never_ be another John."

Jim Moriarty didn't just stop John Watson's heart on the day he died.

He stopped Sherlock's too.


End file.
